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Taxes. Yuck. For 12 years of my life I owned a business that had 6 or more employees which meant I had all that extra paperwork. When I purchased the business it came with an accountant. It’s a good thing because I would not have wanted to file all that stuff on a regular basis. After the business went away we could do our taxes easily. Over the last couple of years, I’ve acquired a retail sales tax number for the yoga boutique, I have cash flow from teaching yoga, some 1099’s and one or two W-2’s. I also have expenses that go with this little business in the way of continuing education, clothing and things I’ve purchased to resell.

So last year I ran to H & R Block. Mistake number one.

I walked in without an appointment with a huge stack of crap to get our taxes done. I had cash figures I’d taken for services. I had two W-2’s. I had three 1099’s. My husband had one W-2. I had my retail stuff as well as the regular personal stuff. It took her 2 1/2 hours. I never once asked her how much this was going to cost. That was mistake number two. I was used to paying around $200 for all the stuff my old accountant had done for me and believe me, it was a ton more than what I’d just presented to H & R. I left with our stuff and ran over to my husband to have him sign it. I returned to retrieve the rest of our info and pay the bill. This is where mistake number three comes in. The bill was $397. Three hundred and ninety-seven dollars! I whipped out a credit card to pay the damage and left in tears.

If my husband would’ve been there he would’ve refused to pay. He would’ve gathered that stuff and left. Was it my fault for not asking how much this was going to cost? Was it her fault for not letting me know along the way? After all, she’d just provided me with a service and I felt obligated to seal the deal. It turns out H & R Block will charge you for every little tiny form they file. They charge like $25 for each W-2 or 1099. The bill was up to over $100 before we ever got started. Would have been nice for her to let me know that ahead of time. Perhaps she was unaware? Riiiight?!

This year I checked out Turbo Tax online. How hard could it be? Not hard at all that’s all I’ve got to say! I started our taxes Friday around noon. I worked on them for a couple of hours. Mainly, organizing my own stuff so I could enter figures. I started back up around 8:30 that same evening and finished at midnight on the dot! I filed my own Schedule C, I entered all my 1099’s and W-2’s. I entered ALL of my own business expenses and claimed our kids. After I did the Federal, I filed the State. It pulled all the info over, so I had to click like three times and I was done! After you finish, the software checks for any errors. I had careless errors for instance; the address on a W-2 was on the wrong line. It’s neat that it catches this stuff and lets you know about it. I printed out our return. It looks exactly like what I received last year, only with greater satisfaction as I did this on my own! The return was approved by early the next morning. I had to upgrade to the small business version so it did cost a little more. The total cost for filing with this online software? $109.90.